Ask HN: I underestimated how lonely building solo can be
No feedback, no one to bounce ideas off, no “nice job” at the end of the day.
The freedom is great, but it gets weirdly quiet.
Anyone else relate?
Anyone else relate?
In addition to "no one to bounce ideas off" - no one to really share the pain and responsibility with when there are problems. It's all on you.
Thankfully, my users are very generous with their feedback, so when I do in fact do a "nice job" - I'm told so :)
For how long have you been building solo?
After 20 years, for me, I can tell you this - what helps me the most is exercising regularly (ideally on all weekdays) AND having kids.
Because of the kids, I rarely have the time to feel lonely and the regular physical exercises keep me in a (fairly) good mental state.
It felt the worst in my first years of solo dev, when all I did was work and hardly spent any time to socialize and take care of myself.
I'm sure it'll get better for you too as your project evolves and your life along with it.
Bouncing ideas off others and getting excited by someone seeing my work and seeing someone else create something is something I miss a lot. Being in meetings and having to deal with policy and bureaucracy I don't miss at all. You kind of have to lean into the pros of working alone (having agency, being able to pivot and move quickly) and remember what you're avoiding (bureaucracy, corporate culture) to fuel yourself beyond the product itself.
Be sure to get out of the house regularly during the work week. Being inside all day and not interacting with others can make you a little nuts even if you don't notice it. I know that there are days I'm not productive and it's usually because all I've been doing is working alone and I'm hitting my mental limits. Even going for a walk makes a difference to wake me up a bit.
You bounce your ideas off someone clever enough only to see that idea being implemented before you had the chance to do it only after hearing that the idea was not good enough.
Your ideas, your solutions, your mistakes, your challenges, your problems, your ideas...
No manager one-on-ones, no a$$h0l3 back-biting coworkers, no one-pagers before meetings, no competing down-levels trying to find mistakes in your ideas, no lofty mentors making recommendations on how to improve your visibility.
If you have paying customers and are financially independent, just enjoy it.
My girlfriend is gracious and pretends to be interested. But building stuff is less fun and more work when you don’t have somebody to be excited with.
However, it’s also been much harder emotionally than I thought. Part of it is the pressure (I also have another kid on the way!), but it’s also just the loneliness. No one to really collaborate with, share wins and losses with, talk me down when things aren’t going well, etc. I applied to an incubator more for the social / cohort aspects than the funding, but I ultimately turned it down because some of the terms just felt too expensive.
I ended up starting a mastermind with some friends, AND joining a paid community for B2B saas founders. It’s OK so far, only been a couple weeks, but I’ve got to do something. I didn’t realize how hard this part would be!
Silly question. That is literally every solopreneur's experience. Does it suck? Heck yes, it does. But there is nothing you can do about it. Road to success is lonesome and there is nobody waiting for you at the top of the success mountain either, if you make it. Maybe read about stoicism a bit, it might help you deal with it in some ways.
My solo projects were on HN news multiple times getting hundreds and even 1000+ points (submitted by other folks tho). I am still building.
I didn't realize there is so many folks from HN building solo, so I literally 2 mins ago created a discord for all of us so we won't get lost after this post goes down: https://discord.gg/GaCz3qMK
And when am I going to be finished, or at least hit a worthwhile milestone?
There really should be some celebration due, and it most likely is going to be with people who have no understanding of what you are doing so often on your own.
It's not the manstream but it is actually normal if you're an individual craftsman.
At one time some of the most high-tech were called "watchmakers" :)
For the OP, if you're truly asking the question, respond using your own words. The LLM responses are devoid of any value.
Not selling anything, but I am trying to figure out what to do to help support solo and micro entrepreneurs, very small businesses (2-3 people) and very small nonprofits.
I feel like there are a lot more people in this position now (me included), but I don't want to do things for the sake of doing them... I want to find out what solo folks really benefit from and help make sure you get more support.
Last "job" was a startup with two other people and it was so great having others to bounce ideas off of and share the ups and downs. Building something together is a fundamental human joy IMO. We sold that and I've been working solo for the last 4 years.
It's lonely, and these have helped me.
- Making a point to physically get out of the house and ideally meet up with someone for a coffee or lunch or something.
- Being part of an active group chat.
- Podcasts
- Working out of a library or bustling cafe, just physically being around other people.
- Working out and maintaining a good wake/sleep cycle.
I also have some great hobbies (flying, scuba, rock climbing) with great communities that keep me socialized.
For anyone about to quit their job and try the solo dev thing, I always say mental well being has to be a "remembered priority". You're never going to have work/life balance like you did at an office job and the first few years are incredibly tough, so you need to plan for that. Marathon, not a race etc etc.
It’s super hard to find someone who can put the same time, energy and effort in as me on any project where it’s not an employer-employee relationship and I’m paying them
Since gpt 2 came out I’ve been way happier doing hobby or side projects with it than I have ever been working with other people, and it’s not even close
My setup is basically myself, my environment and then a chorus of cgpt, claude and Gemini acting as a large GAN.
I’ll give an exceptionally specific prompt with a proposed architecture then it’s just iterating, testing, debug etc…
Also check out https://x.com/solofounding
You could try devlogging. I'm a total misanthrope but I still devlog about my games.
And then someone will ask: what's the end game?!
* No co-workers working on the same thing
* No users using the thing
Both are hard.
It's called "solo, together"
Spend time around others who are also building solo and develop meaningful relationships with them.
If you are feeling lonely, using AI in place of genuinely engaging with people won't help.